Praying at the altar of Healthy Boundaries

Pull up a pew and learn to say no

Nov 19, 2024

I’ve spent the past two years learning to love boundaries. Show me a situation I don’t want to be in and I will show you a big fat no thank you. In case you couldn’t tell from the title, I will shamelessly preach about boundaries until the sun goes down (but then I’ll call it a night because I have to be up at 5.00am).

In the spirit of full disclosure, sometimes setting a boundary still makes my skin crawl and brings a haunted quality to my under-eye bags, but embracing the power of no is my new religion and I’m looking for converts.

The easiest way to break down the concept of boundaries is into the idea of boundaries with yourself (internal boundaries) and boundaries with others (external boundaries). In either case, setting boundaries can be an emotional minefield of guilt and discomfort. But boundaries exist to protect you from harm, both now and in the future, and any temporary inconvenience is well worth it in the long term.

External Boundaries

External boundaries are the ones that we set with other people, and can range wildly from saying no to an invitation to bringing an unhealthy relationship to a close. These can be particularly difficult for anyone with a history of people-pleasing behaviour — I still have to regularly talk myself out of feeling guilty for maintaining my boundaries, but just because a boundary is difficult to establish doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. External boundaries encompass both emotional and physical boundaries with others, and can include:

Work Boundaries: Creating healthy work boundaries is essential to reducing the risk of burnout, and can involve having time away from your physical and mental workspace, not taking on more than you can handle, and taking into account your professional worth and experience to ensure you’re treated accordingly (Tori Dunlap is an amazing source of advice on all things professional and financial).
Relationship Boundaries: I found these to be some of the most difficult boundaries to put in place because I was afraid of alienating my friends or hurting people’s feelings, but creating strong boundaries in this area meant that both I and my relationships were better off. Setting healthy relationship boundaries can look like limiting how much time you spend with certain people, communicating if your emotional needs aren’t being met, and being assertive with protecting your own energy and headspace (which isn’t to say you can’t be there for your loved ones when they’re having a hard time, it’s just a matter of prioritizing your own needs - insert oxygen mask metaphor here).
Romantic Boundaries: Romantic boundaries can look like maintaining healthy individual lives, friendships, and interests outside of the relationship, communicating clearly with your partner about any issues within the relationship, ensuring that the relationship is well-defined for all parties involved, and bringing the romance to a resolute close if it’s causing you harm.

Internal Boundaries

Arguably the easier of the two categories, but only because it doesn’t involve having to talk to people. Internal boundaries cover everything from your relationship with money to your daily routines – the time you go to sleep, what you eat in a day, your screentime – and provide the base determinant in the kind of life you lead. Ironically, they also exist to keep you from becoming too comfortable. None of us want to grow complacent behind walls that have only served to isolate us from new experiences. Boundaries don’t exist to protect you from voluntary adversity - that’s how we build resilience. I detest needles, but I will push myself to donate blood. I put myself in uncomfortable social situations because that’s how I meet incredible new people. I go for oceans swims even when it’s COLD and I’m scared of something BITING ME, because I don’t want to be limited to comfort. Comfort is important, but my most vital internal boundaries come from knowing that I deserve better than stagnation, and knowing that although rest is crucial – more on that in a future post! – so is continuing to learn, grow, and challenge myself.

Financial Boundaries: Setting financial boundaries with yourself can look like following a budget, spending less than you earn, saying no to social events that you can’t afford, and not following every bank-breaking trend. It’s just a water bottle. It shouldn’t be that expensive and it won’t change your life.
Mental Health Boundaries: Setting mental health boundaries with yourself starts with having an awareness of your own mental health needs. From there it’s entirely subjective, but could involve going to counseling, journaling, meditating, taking prescribed medication, or setting aside time to consciously process difficult experiences.
Daily Boundaries: This could be expanded into another five paragraphs but I’ll keep it brief. Daily boundaries involve instances of minor discomfort in order to have a good quality of life. In other words, the prioritisation of delayed gratification. Yes, it would feel great to stay up and watch the next episode, but you’re borrowing that time from tomorrow’s version of you, who’ll be getting through the day with forty minutes less sleep or less prep time for the day ahead. Daily boundaries can look like limiting your screen time, following sleep hygiene, eating well instead of eating easy, and cultivating balance between your work and personal life.
Ritual Boundaries: Setting ritual boundaries means having an awareness of the things you need or want to do that improve your mood or quality of life, and maintaining the resources required to see them through. This might look like making a nice breakfast, scrolling on Pinterest before bed, having a skin care routine, going for a walk, or doing the wordle on your lunch break. Whatever it is that gets you through the day; it’s your responsibility to prioritise your needs.

Setting and maintaining boundaries is a skill to be practiced like any other. There are still things about my life or my relationships that I’m working on, but taking the next step has made me feel more guilty or vulnerable than I can embrace in that moment. Moving through life gives us the opportunity to learn and improve the ways we look after ourselves, but it isn’t necessary to fix every single aspect of your life at once. Each boundary you set makes it easier to face the next one, and eventually it will become second-nature to protect your needs.

Again, this isn’t to say that it’s healthy to reject aspects of other people just because it’s hard or tiring or not something you want to deal with at the time. Community and compassion are essential, and starved’s Bree Beauregard makes an incredible case for the rejection of Main Character Syndrome in to be a main character. Boundaries aren’t a method for rejecting human connection, or for raising yourself above it, rather they’re a tool for protecting yourself while you exist within community. It’s a balancing act. Someday we’ll all be in our sixties and will have perfected the art, but for now we just have to begin.

Amen.